


I Don't Know (Where I'm Supposed to Go)

by mugsandpugs



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Background Lancitty, Bad Parenting, Emotional Manipulation, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pining, School Dances, Unrequited Lance/Pietro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-10 01:09:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15938630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: Listen: Pietro thought the Sadie Hawkins dance would be a good time, what with four gay theater babes on his arm and all. And it could have been, were it not for Blahvalanche tearing it up with miss Pretty Kitty like they think they’re this generation’s Sandy and Danny or something.Whatever. Maybe a visit with Higher Orders will help knock Pietro's priorities back into perspective.





	I Don't Know (Where I'm Supposed to Go)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nemhaine42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemhaine42/gifts).



Malinda was the first to ask him.

She waited until after theater club to approach, tucking dark, frizzy hair behind one ear and shifting from foot to foot as she struggled to work up the nerve to speak.

Pietro beat her to the punchline. "Let me guess, short stuff," he grinned, lounging against the changing room wall, right under a poster suggesting, rather threateningly, that they should all drink milk... _Or else._ "You heard the announcement for the girls-choice dance and thought you'd hop the Tro-train before the line grew too long." He pretended to examine his fingernails. "You always were a smart one."

The poor girl went fantastically crimson, high on her cheekbones and extending all the way to her ears. Before she started exhaling steam, Pietro patted her shoulder consolingly. "I'm flattered, really. But I--"

"It's just!" her voice was barely audible; a high squeak. She couldn't meet his eyes. "It's... They won't let me take my g-girlfriend. It has to be with a boy. And I thought... I thought that since you're like me..."

Pietro blinked, caught off guard. _She's... like... me...?_

He wasn't called Quicksilver for nothing. It clicked in a nanosecond. "Oh! You think I'm... Oh." He had to admire her guts. "You just want to go with me because you can't go with your girlfriend." 

When Malinda nodded, he gave it some thought. She was right about one thing: It wasn't like he was able to invite who _he_ really wanted to go with, either.

"Fine, short stuff," Pietro declared magnanimously. "I'll go with you. On one condition."

Her wide brown eyes nervously searched his face, wondering what he could possibly want from her. Her surprise was nothing short of _priceless_ when he next spoke: "I get to take your girlfriend, too."

* * *

Lance was laughing so hard he had to pull over onto the shoulder of the road or risk wrapping the Jeep around a lamp-post. Personally, Pietro didn't think it was _that_ funny, but watching the Avalanche crack up was always a treat, especially when he inadvertently made the ground tremor.

"Two girls? You're going to the dance with _two girls_?!"

"Hey," Pietro shrugged, and for once his smirk was closer to a smile than anything tinged with mean. He always felt as though his edges had been softened during these late-night drives with the Avalanche. It was easier, somehow, to breathe while in headlights than in sunlight. "Are you really that surprised? It's _me._ "

Lance paused his aftershock gigglefest to glance his way, eyes flicking, briefly, over Pietro's chest, his waist. His face. "I guess not," he acquiesced. "Do you like... _Like_ them, though?"

Pietro supposed they did call Lance 'rockbrains' for a reason. He sighed patiently. " _No,_ Alvers."

"Oh. Good."

_Good?_

Not for the first time, hope grew like a dangerous weed through Pietro's insides, winding tendrils around his lungs, his heart, his thoughts. The Avalanche was a damned plague of soft brown eyes and large warm hands, and it was really pushing this whole 'war' business further and further onto the backburner of Pietro's priorities.

"Why 'good'?" Pietro asked leadingly. "Why is it good that I don't like them, Alvers?"

Lance's face went blank. He _truly_ didn't know. Apparently, Pietro Maximoff was attracted to morons. Wouldn't Father be proud?

"It just bothers me," Lance admitted. Shrugged. "But uh. If you don't like them... Then, good."

Pietro, rolling his eyes, leaned back against the passenger side door, wondering if it was even worth it to poke holes in Lance's obliviousness until they came close to an epiphany. The window was chill against his neck, and he shivered.

"Oh!" Lance said. "You're cold." He stripped off his vest and passed it Pietro's way as if it were a blanket or a coat. Pietro held the useless garment between pinched fingers, an eyebrow arched high enough to swim under. What; did Lance think there was ever a situation in which Pietro's nipples needed warming, but his arms remained better off exposed?

But the vest smelled like a campfire, and Lance was already switching the Jeep back on, wasting precious gas to crank up the heater. Rather than driving straight home, Lance dug around under the seats for loose change and stopped by a convenience store just to buy Pietro a paper travel cup of cheap, scalded cocoa. By the time they'd meandered their way back home, Pietro was feeling quite warm indeed.

* * *

Holly was less timid about her request than Malinda had been.

She and Pietro were partnered up for theater club warmups, performing the mirror exercise together. To Pietro, who's mind moved so quickly, this was exceptionally easy: he saw the minute changes in position and expression long before anyone even finished their transition.

"Hey," Holly hissed at him, and his mouth formed the word silently, his hand rising to sweep hair from his eyes just as she did the same with her own blonde locks. 

When they turned in unison, back to back, she muttered into his ear, "I hear you're taking Malinda and Gretchen to the dance."

Oh, the dance. It wasn't for _weeks_ and already it was the only thing anybody wanted to talk about.

Correctly anticipating her movements by the shifting of her back, Pietro lifted his right hand as she did her left. "Got a problem with that?"

She touched her pinkie to his, and they turned together as though dancing already. "No. But I want you to go with me, too."

Whoa. This wasn't so much an invitation as a demand. Pietro was intrigued. "Why?"

"I'm tired of guys hounding after me, hoping I'll ask them. I know _you_ won't try anything, so..."

Interesting. Holly was both wealthy _and_ one of the prettiest girls in school. He wondered if her admirers were aware their attention wasn't wanted, and whether or not they cared. "What's in it for me?" he asked calculatingly, taking her elbow when they spun.

"I'll pay for everyone's tickets."

* * *

January Contreras was the last girl to invite Pietro, and she had the brass balls to do so in front of the whole Brotherhood, hopping onto their lunch table and letting her legs dangle as she shot him a smoky-eyed glance.

"I hear you like to move fast, Maximoff," she remarked over Todd and Fred's silent screams.

Pietro sat back and folded his arms, cocky mask as flawless as his hair. "You could say that," he agreed neutrally.

"'Brand new Camaro' fast?" she pressed slyly, and he remembered the vibrant orange hot rod her parents had purchased for her sixteenth birthday. Quite a pumpkin for little Cinderella. It was no easy task to impress a Maximoff, but-- 

"Are you trying to ask me something, Contreras?" 

She smiled like a shark and leaned in close, smelling of peaches. He tilted his head to indulge her whispering into his ear. "If I ask you to the dance," she said, her auburn hair tickling his cheek. "You have _got_ to get me at least one dance with Holly, dude. That girl is _fire._ "

Well, now. This was more drama than every soap opera currently on television combined. How could Pietro do anything _but_ agree, if only from sheer curiosity? 

It was after she'd sashayed away, pleased with her victory, that Pietro noticed the way Lance was sitting: immobile as a stone statue, eyes on nothing but his lunch tray.

* * *

Alvers was _agitated_ during their drive that night, missing exits and having to swing an illegal u-turn just to get to their target store.

"You sure you don't want me to just do this alone?" Pietro asked, perturbed that his scheduled alone-time with the Avalanche was being spoiled by mutual bad moods. "Might be more effective."

"Of course you'd think that," Lance growled into his steering wheel, and would say no more until they were parked at a 24-hour supermarket the next town over.

They'd never been to this particular location before, but they'd performed this trick so often that it didn't matter. Lance went in first, propping the door open with a large rock, and Pietro gave him enough time to grab a candy bar and distract the cashier at the register.

Pietro then raced through the store at Quicksilver-invisible speed, grabbing enough food and household supplies to last a home of five mutant teens a week, filling the Jeep's entire backseat from footwell to ceiling. By the time Lance paid for the candy bar and returned, Pietro was once more sitting pretty in the passenger seat with nary a hair out of place.

Lance glanced in the backseat and seemed satisfied by the haul. He drove them away with haste, though not so quickly as to be suspicious.

As was their habit, Lance gave Pietro the candy. This time, Pietro surprised him by handing over a coffee-- the fancy, bottled kind. He hoped Lance would consider it a caffeinated olive branch.

Lance seemed to be put in a much better mood by the prospect of food and toilet paper stocking their cupboards. He even turned the radio on for the ride home. "You're good; you know that?" he remarked at one point. "I don't know what we'd do without you."

Complimenting Pietro directly was something most of the Brotherhood avoided when they could. They said he had a big enough head as it was. Still, Pietro couldn't help but beam; feeling as though a tiny sun was shining from his very pores. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, Tro."

The way Lance said his nickname in that soft, late-night way of his made fuzzy little bats flap through Pietro's bloodstream.

Lance parked along the curb just outside their house, but did not get out immediately. His gloved fingers drummed the dashboard. He chewed his lip, then pulled a handle to make his seat lay flat. After a puzzled moment, Pietro copied him.

They looked up together through the dirt-spotted sunroof at approximately six stars choking for life in Bayville's city smog.

When Lance turned his head, their noses were mere inches apart. Pietro could have counted Lance's eyelashes. His breath caught in his throat, and even the ever-vibrating atoms that made up his sprinters' legs seemed at last to fall still.

"Tro?" Lance asked, his voice a sweet, pillow-talk murmur. "Would you..."

Pietro closed his eyes, feeling all the blood in his body center at once in his lips.

"... Would you help me find a suit that fits? I'm pretty sure Kitty's gonna ask me to the dance. I _really_ wanna impress her."

* * *

They were theater students. A quintet of literal drama queens. Of course they had to make a dramatic entrance. 

With Gretchen on his right arm and Holly on his left, he was almost able to forget the past few days: a blur of _Kitty this,_ and _Kitty, that_ staining Pietro's mood black as pitch.

He'd thought the worst was when Lance came home from school glowing like a pregnant lady as he excitedly blurted, " _She asked me!_ "

The jeering Brotherhood, of course, had quickly brought his mood down by excessive teasing, but even that couldn't lift Pietro's spirits. "Pathetic," he'd sneered. And that was that.

What did it matter? Pietro was the envy of the male student body. He had _four_ dates, and they were all beautiful, funny girls who knew how to dance. He'd arrived in a Camaro still rife with new-car smell. What had Lance and Kitty driven in? Oh, right: An ancient, dinged, rusty Jeep packed with three other mutants. She'd probably had to phase just to fit.

She sure looked happy, though, shining almost as brightly as Lance. Lance gazed at her like the moon did the sea, eyes all soft and wondering, as though this all was a dream he expected to wake from any minute now.

Well, yippy for them.

Pietro heard Tabby and her two dates wolf-whistling in his direction and shot them a wry salute. At least _someone_ was having fun.

Principal Kelly, as joyless and universally unloved as black licorice, stood at the far wall precisely halfway between the DJ table and the snack booth. When he met Pietro's gaze, his mouth tightened as though tasting something foul. Pietro, unable to pass up an opportunity to antagonize, gave him his biggest smile.

Gretchen and Malinda wasted no time pairing off, arms around one another, foreheads touching as they swayed. They were pretty damn cute, and Pietro took careful stock of the students that sneered and snickered at them. Very soon, he vowed, they'd find valuable items mysteriously absent from their lockers.

Holly abruptly clenched Pietro's arm so hard that he hissed.

"Don't damage the merchandise," he complained, shaking his arm out. "What's your deal?"

She wasn't looking at him, but instead across the gym at where Duncan Matthews and his jock buddies crowded the snack table, intimidating everyone else away. Several of them had their eyes on her, leering like she was the lone gazelle in a field of lions.

Oh. Right.

Taking her hands, Pietro spun at twice the beat, for once grateful for tinny pop music. Though the tackily decorated school gym was crowded, he anticipated gaps in the crowd at near-perfect timing and was beside Tabby and the boys in a matter of seconds.

Holly regarded Fred's intimidating size with wide eyes, and Pietro offered a grin and a shrug. Freaks the Bayville Brotherhood might be, but they-- Pietro included-- were powerful freaks indeed to have on one's side.

"Lookin' hot!" Tabby crowed, a person-shaped firecracker doing what might honest-to-God have been the Macarena with Todd. It was unclear whether she was addressing Pietro or his date. Holly gave her a wan smile.

 _Nobody_ went on a date with Pietro Maximoff and called it a bad time. When he offered his hand for the next song, Holly's smile turned a little more genuine.

By the time January rejoined them, Pietro'd almost completely forgotten that he was unhappy.

Almost.

Because then he realized that Lance and Kitty had also migrated in their direction, close as kittens in a basket, stars in their eyes and blushes on their cheeks. Pietro stopped dead in his tracks when Lance moved to sweep an errant strand of hair from Kitty's forehead.

January, following Pietro's stare, correctly guessed his troubles. When her thumb touched the corner of his mouth, he startled and turned to meet her eyes.

"Wanna make him jealous?" she offered, slinking close.

Oh, that was tempting. What would Lance think, if he looked up and saw Pietro wrapped around two pretty girls? Surely he'd have to notice him then...

But what if he didn't notice? Or worse: what if he _did_ notice, and still didn't care?

The thought felt like claws knotting in Pietro's insides, killing the hope-weeds that had been growing within him. When he dared glance at the happy couple a second time, he saw Kitty rise onto her tiptoes and peck a daring kiss onto Lance's cheek.

Disentangling himself from his dates, Pietro backed into an exit. "Be right back!" he lied, and fled for the one place he knew at least a small piece of himself-- even if his mutation _was_ outside of his control-- would always be appreciated and valued. 

* * *

Running was an all-too-brief reprieve from thinking, from feeling. Pietro was an invisible ghost traversing the land; private property and wild acreage alike. The temperature cooled as he rose north, crossing the line from Albany into Montreal without so much as a hint of notice from border patrol.

After that, his search became a hint more difficult. He knew, dimly, where his father had most recently taken residence, but the vague description he'd been given was hard to navigate in the dark. Eventually, though, he did find the abandoned Canadian shopping center he'd been told about.

Pietro looked around uncertainly, made uncomfortable by the fog and the dark. The working streetlights here were few and far between, casting shaky halos in which a few lethargic moths danced. The cracked and untended parking lot seemed eerie in its stillness, with a wind-pushed plastic bag the only other motion present. The graveyard of dark, unmarked gray buildings looked as though they'd had been condemned for years, crumbling into instability. 

Father was staying _here?_

If it weren't for the anxiety-induced hyperawareness of his surroundings, Pietro would have quite missed the hulking shape moving behind him on predator-soft feet. As it was, he'd only begun to turn around when a clawed hand closed around his forearm. Pietro about jumped out of his skin, heart tripping to supersonic speeds. 

Tall and bulky, his assailant was unyielding as a brick wall. "Well, if it ain't Junior." Sabertooth purred, sounding highly entertained. His elongated canines flashed white in the darkness. As always, he smelled strongly of sweat and old meat. "What's up, squirt?"

When dealing with Victor Creed, it was best not to behave like a prey animal. That meant no talking fast, no high-pitched noises, and absolutely _no running._  

Which was to say, Pietro often just avoided him when he could. He didn't, as a rule, much care for cats and their games. 

Still, he tried to be assertive now. Puffing out his chest to try and appear larger, he held his chin high and spoke with authority. "I'm here to meet my father."

The hand around his arm tightened. "Your old man _know_ you're gonna be here tonight?"

He didn't. Nobody knew. Rules be damned, Pietro couldn't help but squirm at the uncomfortable reminder. "Creed! Let me--"

"What is going on?"

Magneto's deep voice, laced with disapproval, carried from just outside the largest, nearest building in the lot. He sounded regal even in this forgotten dump.

Sabertooth's grin only grew. Holding Pietro's captured arm hostage, he waved it cheerfully. "Found you a present, boss. All wrapped up pretty." He used a claw to pluck mockingly at Pietro's suit-jacket. 

Pietro's cheeks burned, humiliated to be treated so in front of his father. Why did Magneto always have to find him in the worst situations?! First the jail cell; now being bullied by lesser mutants... No wonder he thought his son was useless.

Magneto, approaching, was not amused. "I don't pay you to mess around. Go throw cars at the Wolverine, or whatever it is you do."

Victor pouted at this lack of sport, but relaxed his grip enough for Pietro to pull away. The teenage mutant took several hasty steps back and stood between him and Magneto, keeping them both in his line of sight. He wondered just how cowardly it would look to run now.

With a funny little bow probably meant to be sarcastic, Sabertooth slunk off into the night. The weight of his presence still lingered. 

Pietro dared risk a glance at his father, who was watching him stonily. Tonight he was dressed more casually than Pietro was used to seeing: Slacks. A button-down. Silver hair combed and pressed neat.

"No helmet?" Pietro asked, then internally cringed. Of all the inane things to begin with... Magneto, rightfully, ignored the question. 

Pietro glanced, again, in the direction Sabertooth had wandered off to. "You need to get a leash for that jerk," he grumbled, and rubbed at his sore arm.

"He is brutish, but he has his uses. What brings you here tonight?"

All business, all the time. Pietro wished he'd thought with his brain instead of his feet, or at least come up with a better excuse for the intrusion. "I just... I needed someplace to go. Just for tonight, I promise..." That wasn't too strange, was it? Normal people, even mutants, were allowed to visit their parents when they felt like it, right? Why did it have to be so different for them?

Magneto didn't move or say anything for a long moment. When Pietro looked up once more, his father was still studying him closely, taking in his windswept hair and rumpled formalware. "Has someone harmed you?" he asked, and for a moment he was not Father, nor Magneto, but the papa of Pietro's early childhood; something almost kind in his intense eyes.

Pietro was quick to shake his head, though his heart sank, certain he was about to be sent away, or chastised for wasting his father's time. "No. I just... Tonight was a lot."

"You're requesting a place to stay the night?" With a crook of his fingers, Magneto had the heavy old doors easing apart enough to admit two people. "Come."

He’d always been a man of careful words; placing each down deliberately. After a lot of thought, Pietro had wondered if he was maybe trying to hide his accent for some reason, but didn’t think he’d ever be brave enough to ask.

Pietro cautiously followed his father into the musty building; all concrete and stripped tile. The wall-mounted lights were few and far between, and appeared to have been installed after Sabertooth and Magneto took up residence-- for function, if not aesthetics. Pietro supposed manipulation of metal could extend to electrical wiring.

He vacillated between his need to fill all silence with chatter and the solemnity that always fell around this enigmatic man. With Magneto's piercing eyes and unreadable expression, Pietro always felt that anything he had to say would be considered irrelavent, and that it was best to hold his tongue for all save the most pressing, relevant information. Still...

"How long have you been here, father?" 

"Just under four weeks. We might take a few more days before we find another hidden pocket of the world to do our work in." After speaking, Magneto stopped walking quite so briskly, and turned to face his son again. "Pietro, are you here because you're having troubles with a girl?"

Pietro's heart sank at the turn in conversation. Oh, here it was. He doubted his father would care enough to make a fuss out of it, but... "Troubles with a, uh. Boy, actually."

"Ah." Much to Pietro's relief, Magneto sounded neither surprised nor put off by this small coming-out. "Well, it comes with your age. Hormones." He waved a hand dissmissively. "It happens to us all. It will pass."

Now Pietro was truly baffled. "Being gay will pass?"

Magneto _laughed._ It was a sharp bark of a sound, so wholly unexpected that Pietro jumped. He couldn't recall ever hearing the man laugh before. "No, no. That is not what I was saying. I was referring to... I suppose a 'crush' is the word I'm searching for. Tell me, is he a mutant?"

As though Pitero would have confessed to feelings for a human! "Yes."  

Magneto nodded thoughtfully. Then, rather cannily, "A mutant you _live_ with?"

Oh, that was not a good thing to admit. He was meant to be a spy on the Brotherhood, an informant for his father. To even imply that his loyalties had shifted--!

His silence was more telling than any answer, but Magneto did not look angry. He reached for Pietro, who held very still as a knuckle tipped his chin up, forcing him to look into impassive blue eyes.

"It is not your fault," Magneto reassured. "You are young. It will pass." He seemed to think it over. "He does not deserve you anyway."

Surprise kept Pietro rooted to the spot as Magneto resumed walking through the long, darkened hallway towards a literal light at the end of the tunnel. Pietro's chin tingled where he'd been held. Even when they'd been small, Magneto seldom touched his children. It was as though he wasn't quite sure how to do it, and thought it best to leave the task for those better qualified.

When Magneto at last reached a door towards the end of the hallway, he stopped and turned to regard Pietro, his expression a plain, _Well?_

Pietro shook himself out of his stupor and zipped to Magneto's side, then peered into the room as the door opened. 

The space might once have served as some foreman's office, based on the cabinet-lined walls and the partially dismantled desk, but now the room also sported simple living amenities: an iron bed with a small mattress, boxes of clothing and paperwork; books, maps, a mirror...

Recognizing the quilt that covered the bed, Pietro turned to look up at his father. "Is this your room?"

"For the time being. Lets get you something else to wear. I find a change of clothes sometimes helps me to shake off an uncomfortable feeling."

Would this day just continue to grow more and more surreal? Pietro watched as Magneto sorted through some boxes and found a sweater and a simple pair of black slacks, plain and pressed. He set them on the bed, made for the door again, and hesitated. "You must be hungry."

"I could eat." Running always made Pietro hungry. He had to keep up a pretty high-cal diet, just to move the way he did. "If it's not a problem."

"You are not a problem. You are evolved. It's a priority to care for you."

Oh, that... He wasn't? A problem? Or was it just that his mutation itself wasn't a problem? What exactly could Magneto mean by--

But then he was gone, walking further down the seemingly endless maze of half-underground hallway, leaving his son with more questions than answers, as always. He'd left the door ajar. Not wanting to remain undressed for long, Pietro was quick to zip into the clothes offered him.

Pietro frowned at his reflection in the mirror, turning this way and that. He almost fit his father's old clothes. Almost. They were just a little big everywhere: shoulders, chest, waist, legs. At sixteen, he'd hoped to have started to fill out, but was beginning to fear he would never achieve his father's stature.

The approach of footsteps had him turning. Magneto, a dishtowel over one shoulder, regarded him from the doorway. Perhaps he saw something off in Pietro's expression because he remarked, "You look very like I did at your age. I was also a late bloomer."

There was absolutely nothing he could have said that would have surprised Pietro more. "I _do_?"

"Perhaps not so much in the face. You've your mother's features. But in shape? Certainly."

If Pietro wasn't startled into silence by the first admission, the casual reference to his other parent did the trick.

"Weren't you um. At the time, weren't you..." There was no tactful way to ask one's absurdly youthful father about his formative years spent in a concentration camp. Pietro deeply regretted his big mouth.

He saw no anger or disgust in the tall man's eyes as he replied calmly, "I was freed from Auschwitz shortly after I turned sixteen."

Pietro didn't know what to be more pleased by: This tidbit of previously unknown information... Or the fact that his father knew how old he was.

From the next room over, the scent of cinnamon wafted. Pietro's nose twitched as he inhaled. He closed his eyes, savoring the scent, and it triggered something in his memory.

"Papa, are you making..."

"Apple treats?" Pietro heard the smile in Magneto's voice, but by the time he opened his eyes again, it was gone, replaced by the flat line of neutrality once more. Pietro wished he could have seen it. 

"They were your favorite when you were small. I remember."

Feeling a little dazed and floaty, Pietro padded after his father to what served as a kitchenette. Like the rest of the temporary hideout, it was mostly cheerless concrete spotted with evidence of life wherever convenient outlets were placed. A toaster-oven atop a stack of crates emitted the heavenly smell, and Pietro pressed close to peek at the peeled and cored apples marinate in butter-sugar-cinnamon glory.

"Watching them won't make them cook any faster, myszko," Magneto said, sitting at one of two folding chairs tucked under a card table. He still wasn't smiling, but the glint in his eye was almost... teasing.

Myszko. Mouse. A term of endearment for a very young Pietro, on account of how small and meek he was; the softness of his silvery hair. His twin, conversely, had been tygrysek -- tiger cub.

Pietro didn't know in that moment what he most felt high on: The smell of a favorite food, long forgotten, or the affirmation of a love he'd believed was long extinct.

When the toaster-oven beeped, Magneto made to stand, but Pietro shook his head rapidly. "No, father; I've got it! Where do you keep your bowls?"

He zipped excitedly through the makeshift "kitchen", rolling apples into bowls and drizzling sauce over the top. He gave his father the prettier of the two servings and was quick to take the seat beside him. His plastic spoon pierced the tender apple without any real effort.

"Ow," Pietro whined, when the too-hot apple burned his tongue, and Magneto sighed.

"You are supposed to _wait,_ " he chastised, and Pietro gave him a sheepish smile. He'd never been very good at waiting. Magneto moved the food out of Pietro's reach until it could cool.

His father resumed looking at the paperwork that fanned across the table and Pietro, bereft of his snack, tried covertly to peek at the writing there, too. Much to his surprise, he didn't understand the old language it was written in--  noteworthy, as Pietro knew many languages. "Are those heiroglyphs?!" he asked, cocking his head as he studied the grainy, printed photographs. 

"They are." Magneto might have been annoyed at his son's blatant spying, but instead he seemed to take it in stride. "I'm studying old writings regarding the apocalypse-- ah, but that's not for you to worry about just yet. I will keep you informed as my plans progress."

Wow. Pietro's father really was someone remarkable. A Holocaust survivor with a mission-- a driving purpose. Pietro didn't know if he himself had _any_ driving purpose of his own; didn't know if his attention span could even hold one. He followed orders, yeah, and he did okay in school, but he didn't think he'd ever felt so deeply passionate about a cause in his life. To have some of his father's drive and confidence...

"You are staring at me," Magneto pointed out, though he didn't sound perturbed by it.

"Do you really think we'll do it?" Pietro blurted out. "Make a world where mutants stand on top?"

He hadn't meant for his question to sound doubtful of his father's capabilities, and felt a flare of anxiety when Magneto frowned seriously at him. Would the man take offense? Had Pietro just ruined what had become a surprisingly pleasent night; the nicest night he could ever remember spending in his father's company?

So wound up was he that when Magneto reached for him, he jolted. A palm pressed to his cheek, fingers gently stroking his hair back.

"Yes," the old man said, plainly, looking Pietro in the eye. "I _will_ build a world for  mutants-- a world for _you,_ son. I ask so little-- only that you do your part. That you don't let yourself fall prey to... Distractions."

 _Well, hell,_ Pietro thought dazedly. What choice did he have but to believe in conviction like that? Magneto really was asking the bare-bones minimum from him, and in return, he'd get to be a part of something great. In return, he'd be making this man proud, for maybe the first time in his life.

"Yes, father," Pietro agreed with new resolve, and was glad when the hand on his face did not immediately recede. "I-- we-- _we_ will make your vision happen. Together. No more distractions."

And, right in that apple scented kitchen, Magneto was _smiling._ Close-lipped; small, but still, unquestionably, a _smile._ At _him!_

"I know you will," Magneto agreed warmly. "You can be _such_ a good boy."

**Author's Note:**

> Evo art exchange with [Narmie!](https://nemhaine42.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Title from [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSd1B8dBzIA)


End file.
